(TibetanReview.net, Aug23’26) – A strongly anticipated meeting between the US ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, and Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in the Union Territory of Ladakh did not take place after all. The Dalai Lama has been sojourning in Ladakh since Jun 28 for an extended summer stay while Gor arrived there on Aug 20 after high-profile engagements in neighbouring Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Gor’s visit was the first by a top US envoy to this strategic frontier region of India since the 2020 Galwan clashes and subsequent border standoff with China.
While in J&K, Gor, speaking to reporters alongside Chief Minister Omar Abdullah following their high-level dialogue, remarked, “Kashmir is an important part of India. I am visiting the place for the first time. It is an incredibly beautiful place.”
Gor concluded his visit to J&K and Ladakh on Aug 21, after visiting the centuries-old, 12-storeyed Thiksey Monastery, one of the largest and most prominent monasteries in central Ladakh, located about 19km from capital Leh. The monastery is widely noted for its resemblance to the Potala Palace in Tibet’s capital Lhasa. The monastery’s top lama, Thiksey Rinpoche, has regularly welcomed the Dalai Lama during his annual summer visits to Ladakh over the past many years.
Gor showed keen interest in Ladakh’s spiritual heritage and cultural traditions. He spent about half an hour visiting the temples and learning about Ladakh’s tradition, Buddhist heritage and more about the place, reported the freepressjournal.in Aug 22.
One of the main attractions there is the Maitreya Temple, which commemorates the visit of the 14th Dalai Lama to this monastery in 1970. It features a 15-metre (49 ft) high statue of Maitreya, the immediate future Buddha, which is the largest such statue in Ladakh, covering two stories of the building., the report noted.
Still, the most telling event of Gor’s first trip to Ladakh was a meeting that never took place, said indiatoday.in Aug 21.
The Central Tibetan Administration of the exile Tibetans told the media that there was a change in the programme on the night preceding Gor’s visit, and so the meeting did not happen. But neither side has explained why. And in diplomacy, that silence usually says more than a statement would, the report said.
At least one comment on X said the decision smacked of pressure from China: “China ka danda pada lagta hai,” noted the news outlet FirstPost on its on X account Aug 20.
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Indeed, the decision may have to do with the fact that Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit the United States in the next two weeks, as revealed by President Donald Trump while addressing a Republican campaign rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Aug 21, according to a mid-day.com report Aug 22.
Trump did not provide a specific date, venue or agenda for his expected meeting with Xi, the report said.
Also, a meeting between the US ambassador and the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing regards as a separatist threat to its rule over Tibet, and that too on Ladakhi soil, would have been read in Beijing as Washington needling China on its most sensitive frontier. Besides, it was something better avoided ahead of a BRICS Summit being hosted by India next month, said the indiatoday.in report.
The Kashmir and Ladakh legs of Gor’s trip form one story: an envoy with real proximity to the Oval Office, moving through India’s frontier geographies, saying just enough to please New Delhi, and doing just enough to avoid antagonising Beijing, the report concluded.